BAR Valencia test summary 2004-02-18/20

Jenson Button, Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson have all been in action
this week for Lucky Strike B*A*R Honda, as the team's intensive winter
test programme nears its conclusion. The Valencia circuit in Spain was
the location of the three-day...

Jenson Button, Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson have all been in action
this week for Lucky Strike B*A*R Honda, as the team's intensive winter
test programme nears its conclusion. The Valencia circuit in Spain was
the location of the three-day test, which involved two B*A*R Honda 006's
and the '04 Concept car.

The main objectives of the test were to finalise tyre choice and aero
configuration for Melbourne and to continue reliability running on the
Honda race specification engines. The weather on the first two days of
the test was cold yet sunny, and was ideal for the programme. Jenson set
the second fastest time of the day on Wednesday with a time of 1:09.477,
with Takuma fourth fastest.

The programme also went well on Thursday, but weather conditions
deteriorated for the final day. Both cars only completed installation
laps today before the team took the decision to stop testing due to
unsafe track surfaces and the difficulty of testing effectively. Over the
three days the team has added a valuable 1900kms of running to its winter
test programme.

The B*A*R test team will move to the Silverstone circuit next week in
order to make the final preparations before the 2004 FIA Formula One
World Championship begins the following Friday in Melbourne.

Jenson Button:

"We had a very good day of testing on Wednesday. Once again we
concentrated on working with Michelin on different tyre compounds. We
also concentrated on our tyre choices for the Australian and Malaysian
GP's. Thursday went well, although it was a little difficult to find the
correct balance, but towards the end of the day we achieved a reasonable
result. We had some good long runs and worked solidly on reliability."

Takuma Sato:

"The last two tests have been very important to us as we have had the new
car and the race team mechanics and engineers. It has been good to see
the team together and excited before Australia. I've been in the new car
this week and we have had a successful test. We have looked at tyres and
set-up work and completed a full race simulation. We have had a good
couple of days, although unfortunately the weather has been very bad
today and has really affected our running. The preparation is never
complete, but the car has a good feeling now and I know we can race. The
car is fast and reliable and I'm looking forward to Melbourne when we
have the opportunity to show our performance."

Anthony Davidson:

"It's been a difficult test, but we have completed some useful testing of
engine reliability, aero and brakes. In fact, we've obtained a lot of
useful figures from the aero work. We have been encouraged by the engine
reliability, as we haven't had any major problems. It's a shame that the
weather has been bad today as we have lost a lot of track time. We now
only have one more test at Silverstone next week before we go to
Australia so we will be looking to work very hard to optimise set-up on
the new cars."

Geoffrey Willis, Technical Director:

"The focus of this week's test in Valencia was to finalise tyre selection
for Melbourne and to confirm the final engine and aero specification of
the car for Melbourne. We had a successful test completing all of our
testing on aerodynamic parts and ran two more race specification engines
to the full weekend distance. Unfortunately today has been too wet and
cold to run productively, so we have had to cut the test short. We are
encouraged by our notably improved performance at this track and we now
have final shakedown tests at Silverstone before sending the race cars
out to Australia."

Shuhei Nakamoto, Engineering Director, Honda Racing Development:

"It was a shame the test was cut short today because of the rain. Until
then we had continued to show reasonably good speed, although there were
a few problems especially on the first day. We are still in a positive
frame of mind, and will keep pushing forward next week at the last test
before the season starts.